Virtual height and surround effect in soundbar without up-firing and surround speakers
AssigneeHarman International Industries, Incorporated
InventorJames Zheng
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An apparatus to realize the virtual height and surround effect. The apparatus includes at least an input source, a processor and front speaker. The input source provides the input signals on front, surround and height channels input into the processor in which a beamforming, channel separation and/or virtual-height effect are applied on each of the source channels, respectively. After the processing, all produced output channels output by the processor are arranged and combined into existing speakers of the soundbar.
Claims17
An apparatus for realizing a virtual height and a surround effect by front speakers, comprising:
- an input source configured to provide input signals via at least one of front, surround, and height channels;
- a processor configured to perform optimizing processes on the at least one of front, surround, and height channels of the input source;
- and
- front speakers comprising a plurality of speakers;
- wherein output signals after processing via the processor are fed to the front speakers,
- wherein the height channels of the input source comprise at least one of left/right height channels, and the processor comprises a height-effect processor which applies both a channel separation and a head-related transfer function on the at least one of the left/right height channels to produce a plurality of virtual left/right height channels, respectively,
- wherein the front channels of the input source comprise at least one of left/right channels, and the processor further comprises a beamforming processor configured to apply beamforming on the at least one of the left/right channels to produce a plurality of virtual left/right channels, respectively, and
- wherein a number of the plurality of virtual left/right channels produced by the beamforming processor is greater than a number of the plurality of virtual left/right height channels produced by the height-effect processor.
A method for realizing virtual height and surround effect by front speakers, the steps of the method comprising:
- receiving input signals from at least one of front, surround, and height channels of an input source, wherein the height channels of the input source comprise at least one of left/right height channels;
- performing, via a processor, optimizing processes on the input signals from the at least one of front, surround, and height channels of the input source, respectively;
- and
- feeding output signals after processing via the processor to the front speakers, and
- applying, via a height-effect processor, both a channel separation and a head-related transfer function on the at least one of the left/right height channels to produce a plurality of virtual left/right height channels, respectively,
- wherein performing the optimizing process further comprises applying a beamforming process on at least one of left/right channels of the front channels of the input source to produce a plurality of virtual left/right channels, respectively, and
- wherein a number of the plurality of virtual left/right channels produced by the beamforming processor is greater than a number of the plurality of virtual left/right height channels produced by the height-effect processor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.